Ryan Gosling and Rachel McAdams are even better at acting than we thought (Picture: Melissa Moseley/New Line Productions)

So it turns out one of our all-time favourite romances was all a ruse. Notebook sweethearts Ryan Gosling and Rachel McAdams didn’t even like each other, the film’s director Nick Cassavetes has revealed.

Although the two hooked up in real life after the film’s release, Gosling, who played lovestruck Noah, and McAdams, who played Allie, were far from friendly on set. So much so, The Notebook almost didn’t happen.

‘Maybe I’m not supposed to tell this story, but they were really not getting along one day on set. Really not,’ said Cassavetes. ‘And Ryan came to me, and there’s 150 people standing in this big scene, and he says, “Nick come here.” And he’s doing a scene with Rachel and he says, “Would you take her out of here and bring in another actress to read off camera with me?”

‘I said, “What?”

‘He says, “I can’t. I can’t do it with her. I’m just not getting anything from this.”’

The director then forced the pair of them into therapy to smooth things over.

He continued: ‘We went into a room with a producer; they started screaming and yelling at each other. I walked out. At that point I was smoking cigarettes. I smoked a cigarette and everybody came out like, “All right let’s do this.”

‘And it got better after that, you know? They had it out… I think Ryan respected her for standing up for her character and Rachel was happy to get that out in the open. The rest of the film wasn’t smooth sailing, but it was smoother sailing.’